A Hard Goodbye

As we grow up, a set of family surrounds us, our friends. While distance always crawls up in between, you know many of your friends, you cannot say bye to, they live close by, in the same city, festivals and family functions provides enough reason and opportunities to meet and catch up. 

And while growing up, you dream of a few things. You make a resolution to get as much as possible, with available resources and time. One of mine was to stay away from home, experience unbinding time & space and create unforgettable experiences.

And on the way, I met people and made friends with them, that are hard to say bye to, now. 

I did expect to make friends, and I did. Not a few, but many. It began with sharing. Sharing a room, sharing a classroom, sharing interests, sharing capacities, sharing dreams. Studying in a residential institute for the first time, I got to know people like never before, and they became close.

I saw what I expected and much, unexpected. An invincible talent pool, people with extraordinary capabilities. I was left, even more speechless, to see people experience goodness and return it doubly. I only understood friendship, or so do I think, here.

It has become a bit too hard to loose these friends. Loose to time, loose to distance, loose to who they are. And to realise why it is hard, is even more painful, it is because of the shared experiences with them. There won’t be more time at hand, to create these experiences, at least for me.

How they do not allow you to fall at any rate, any time – in the classroom, in a relationship, in an interview, in your conduct. How they want you to stay with them, because they know you and want you to be comfortable. How they recall and appreciate what others had to say to them or did for them, and they make these conversations and experiences, the basis for lifetime conduct. How they make you realise who you are, what are your fears, what are your strengths. How they sacrifice their sleep to pick or drop you, otherwise not bothering to get up for even a class or to write an exam. How people grew up, from the funny induction program to last day. How they hold you, when you believe there is no one to do it. How they walk with you, even when you left them when they needed you.

Thanks to the placement cell, and these friends, I leave with a job. A job to keep me occupied, a job to stop the incessant tears, a job to take the empty hollow feeling away. Until the convocation hours, where one could be a kid, once again, if only for a while.